I haven't read this collection from cover to cover since I was sixteen or seventeen, although I've definitely read through pieces of it since then, this is the first time that I've read the whole thing in a long time, including the self-serving essay by some long-forgotten academic, and EC Bentley's parody "Greedy Night", which satirizes, rather effectively, Sayers' highly literary style of story-telling. Some great stories in the collection, including "The Abominable History of the Man with the Copper Fingers", "The Piscatorial Farce of the Stolen Stomach", "The Entertaining Episode of the Article in Question" (featuring a solution based on a thorough knowledge of French), "The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba", and "The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey", among others. Of course, "The Haunted Policeman" and "Talboys", two post-Harriet stories, are welcome additions here. Really, the whole collection is solid, even including some of the weaker stories - Sayers at her weakest is still better than some writers at their strongest. 5 / 5 stars. ( )

I loved these short stories. All of them were clever, though some were more remarkable than others. Peter's faking of his own death for two whole years to get a group of criminals was a weird touch, though I enjoyed the story.

My favourites were the last two -- yay, children! And especially, yay Cuthbert! I loved the last line of the last story best of all: "Bunter, find Master Bredon's snake for him and return it carefully to the furnace-room. It answers to the name of Cuthbert."

One thing I did wish for was Bunter's reactions to Peter's sons. That would have been wonderful.

Anyway, clever and entertaining, and surprisingly easy to read. I spent an hour with them this evening that felt like fifteen minutes. ( )

A compilation of all the short stories to feature Peter Wimsey, all of which are available in other collections, all of which – I think – we have, but this is a convenient way to read them all together. As is often the case with short stories, the quality is variable. Some are excellent, some average, one or two … not so good. The ones that stick in my mind from my childhood are the more gruesome of the bunch: the man who turned his girlfriend into an Art Deco sofa, the man who withdrew his wife’s thyroid medicine and turned her into a drooling imbecile for nine months of the year, the man who used his dentistry skills to fake his own death. Others, such as the, frankly preposterous, story where Wimsey fakes his own death in order to go undercover in a gang of jewel thieves for two years, I had completely forgotten, and will almost certainly soon forget again. ( )

Wikipedia in English (2)

One of the founding mothers of mystery, Dorothy Sayers first introduced the popular character Lord Peter Wimsey in 1923 with the publication of Whose Body? Over the next twenty years, more novels and short stories about the aristocratic amateur sleuth appeared, each one as cunningly written as the next.Now in single volume, here are all the Lord Peter Wimsey stories, a treasure for any mystery lover. From "The Fantastic Horror of the Cat in the Bag" to "The Image in the Mirror" and "Talboys," this collection is Lord Peter at his best -- and a true testament to the art of detective fiction.